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Aspen Times file
A long-festering battle over a marble mine in the Crystal River Valley has taken a twist that threatens to permanently shut down the operation before it ever gets scaled up to industrial level.
Mystic Eagle Quarry LLC contends it owns the White Banks mining claims along Avalanche Creek but the U.S. Forest Service has misinterpreted recent events and is taking action that could extinguish the company’s hard-fought mining permit. Mystic Eagle filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in federal court Feb. 16 seeking a ruling that it holds a valid operations permit.
The Forest Service said it has simply relied on prior court rulings in a battle for the mining claims between Mystic Eagle and a rival company. It has ordered Mystic Eagle to remove its equipment from national forest lands at the mine site, about 5 miles north of Redstone along Avalanche Creek.
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Aspen Journalism
A herd of bighorn sheep graze along the Crystal River near Penny Hot Springs on Tuesday. Local groups are restarting a push for a federal Wild & Scenic designation on the upper portion of the river.
Heather Sackett/Aspen Journalism
REDSTONE After a four-year hiatus, residents of the Crystal River valley are reviving efforts to protect the upper portion of the river through a federal designation.
The Crystal River Caucus, Pitkin County, the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association and others are once again discussing designating the upper 39 miles of the river from the two branches of its headwaters in the Snowmass-Maroon Bells Wilderness to the first major downstream irrigation diversion, the Sweet Jessup Canal as Wild & Scenic.
Proponents have reintroduced a sweeping Colorado public lands measure amid higher hopes of it passing now that Democrats control both houses of Congress and Democrat Joe Biden is president.
U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, all D-Colo., are hoping that this might be the year the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act, which would protect some 400,000 acres of public land, becomes law.
âI think thereâs a lot of momentum to pass the bill,â Bennet said during a press conference on Zoom Tuesday.
But the measure continues to face a lack of support in the House from the U.S. representative for Coloradoâs 3rd Congressional District, which overlaps much of the western Colorado land covered by the bill. Former U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton opposed CORE, and new U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who won the general election after defeating Tipton in the Republican primary, has criticized the bill. Bennet said Tuesday he believes the c